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another event, this time at Dirtfish Rally school.
I had kick ass times, fastest overall cumulative, including better than Mod AWD cars, but due to a technicality, my runs did not count.

so, just before my run heat, the car wouldnt start. not even turn over. tried push start, tried jumper cables. noticed the odometer was reading -------.
the interwebz suggested that the PCM was dead, or a bad ground, or not enough power, or blown fuses, or the speed sensor.

checked all the fuses, replaced 1. no start.
checked all pertinant relays. no start.
cleaned a bunch of chassis grounds. no start
reset the computor. no start
pulled the PCM and uninstalled my superchip. no start.

just before we gave up and drove a buddies car 2.5 hours back home to get a truck and trailer, we tried swapping fuses incase they didnt have good contact. also reset the computor again. and it started.

by this time i had missed my run heat. the organizer let me run later in the day, but as "Time Only". no trophies.

heres the vid. I left the preamble on it so you can hear my strategy for the last run. I made one second improvement. I was also very close to the cones as we came out of the trees, as shown by a screen shot of my tire tracks from a car soon after.

also i think i need new wheel bearings in the front, and my PS engine mount might be on its way out...

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This time we totally destroyed a wheel bearing. sounds like gravel in a tin can. This event was a 6 hour drive from home, and fortunately we had the wherewithal to trailer the car.

The venue was excellent and scenic. Eddieville Motorsports park in southern Washington. Lots of elevation changes. The surface was packed dirt and was so hard that you could leave rubber tire marks on it.

After we broke the car on Saturday, we borrowed another to get enough laps to finish the day, and I won Mod Front.
on day 2 we borrowed an e21 BMW. if i didn't have to run out of heat, i would have won Mod Rear, but i was happy just to get my laps in and not break the borrowed car.

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I've been starting to work on fixing the wheel bearings. I've had a lot of autox in the mustang recently, so thats taken a lot of my time. Also, i've been fighting bad tennis elbow that car maintenance just keeps agravating....

anyways, pressed out the old bearings. one side went ok. but the noisy side was completly chowdered. So bad that some of the balls were broken in halves and the races were dented and mangled. in fact one of the races broke and is still stuck partly in the knuckle. That will be the job for today. hopefully i can just use a drift to knock it out, and i dont need to do anything wierd like weld on it, or dremel it.

So mote be it

nice descriptor there, chowdered [] Best of luck with the repairs. Your race photos look great, hopefully you have those in a larger format if you paid for them. The first and last ones would make excellent posters for the garage

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nice descriptor there, chowdered [] Best of luck with the repairs. Your race photos look great, hopefully you have those in a larger format if you paid for them. The first and last ones would make excellent posters for the garage

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havent put the knuckles back on yet, because i was working on front control arm front bushings.
I had poly bushing in there, but noticed some play, so redoing them was pretty easy. I just went with Moog rubber bushings because they were cheap.
pressed them in with a vice. i'm not %100 sure i got them in there with no damage, they deform a lot pushing them in. i lubed them a little with dishsoap (the interwebs suggested it)

I'm looking forward to getting the focus back on the road. I've been DDing my Mustang these last few weeks.

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Just went thru your pics, looks like good fun. if you were going to make another skid plate would you do anything different? I have rallyX'd my svtf at the FIRM in FL and bent my radiator support after plowing thru the sand(also melted fan shroud to header). About to make a skid plate.

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Just went thru your pics, looks like good fun. if you were going to make another skid plate would you do anything different? I have rallyX'd my svtf at the FIRM in FL and bent my radiator support after plowing thru the sand(also melted fan shroud to header). About to make a skid plate.

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Another event, another broken car, twice. Bonus is we broke the truck too.

We had a roller coaster weekend for the SCCA Rallycross National Challenge at Dirtfish.
First I broke the truck before we even left trying to wire in a brake controller. crossed some wires and lit the dash up like a christmas tree , so we scrambled a replacement to tow the trailer.

Then half way through course 1, we break the rear motor mount. snapped the metal and that leads to a broken axle. DNF for Greg, and DNS for me until we found seats in other competitors cars.

On the lunch break rush out to get parts. Piece it back together just in time for Course 2, and start working off the penalty time from the DNF/DNS which was about 20seconds. rallycross times are cumulative.

Finally on the last lap of Course 3, the battery light comes on. Broken wire from the alternator, so we rush to finish the lap and get the car on the trailer before the battery runs out of juice to keep the car running. that broken wire ended up frying the alternator.

Final Result: 1st and 2nd in Prepared FWD.

this vid is funny, me talking out loud like a goof running the course in my mind during the parade lap.

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Race at Oregon Raceway Park, on the farmland beside the track.
we did day and night races.
I have 2 Hella 700FF converted to HID and 2 8" light bars.

anyways. 2nd to last run on sunday, the coolant crossover pipe cracked, spraying all the coolant out all over the engine bay. The lower radiator was partly plugged with dirt and dust, so it probably was running a bit hot.
So it overheated after loosing all the coolant. The oil looks fine, so i suspect head gasket is fine, but i wont know until it can hold pressure.

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got the car back together.
its funny how some repairs go. wait almost a week to get the part shipped. fixed it in 15 minutes.
the only thing wrong was the cracked coolant tube. and refill the coolant.

there was one scare where the coolant level dropped after the first long drive. I feared that there was leak somewhere (headgasket?) but i think it was just working out any bubbles in the system. because it hasnt dropped since.

also here was my night race light setup. i used my Hella 700 (converted to HID) as centre spot lights and the LED bars as cornering lights.

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This might be a suitable wind down to this thread, as I start racing the bmw instead.

but my Focus made the cover of the SCCA 2018 Rallycross Rulebook.

anyways, heres some bmw pics, because its funs too.

havent really updated much on the BMW, we fixed the rear subframe mounts, new diff bushing, subframe bushings, front control arm bushings, welded differential, 1" lift spacers front and rear, oil filter housing gasket, oil change, coolant change, coolant expansion tank, new oem springs, used better shocks, 2 sets of 15 wheels, 1 set of 16s, swapped the snow tires, skid plate, fuel line/brake line underbody protection. it still has some electrical issues, some features have been bypassed or removed. we're about $2500 CAD all in to this car.

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Hey all
I figured I would start a thread about our 2003 ZX3 rally build. We just finished Oregon Trail Rally last weekend, and thought I would share some of the interesting things we have done on the build. OTR was actually our 2nd stage rally, we did Big White Winter Rally in Canada last...

Bought this Base model 06 ZX3 back in 08 for a cheap daily driver. Drove it a few years, crashed it, let it sit for 5-6 years, got it back together and been driving it the last few years. Only has 88k miles on it.
Not going to be a Racecar. I'm still going to use it for a daily driver, just...

I am converting a track car to a champcar/scca/WRL/AER and the wiring needs to work. What all did you eliminate, what did you use to determine what to keep and what to eliminate? Whats a good guide to use? I am going to a switch panel for the startup.